Making Interoperability Click in Manufacturing

T-Systems and NTT are shaping the future of trusted global data exchange by combining telecom-grade infrastructure with federated identity and dataspace interoperability. Their joint contributions to the IDSA paper and cross-border testbeds between Europe and Japan show how telcos can drive secure, scalable, and regulation-compliant data collaboration across ecosystems. This approach supports real-world use cases like Digital Product Passports, predictive maintenance, and circular economy models—laying the groundwork for a network of sovereign, interoperable digital infrastructures.

Manufacturing is undergoing a digital revolution, yet many transformation initiatives stall due to a fundamental problem: data trapped in silos. The real roadblock isn't AI or lack of tools, but interoperability—the ability of systems, teams, and companies to understand and trust each other's data. This article explores why traditional approaches fail and introduces Manufacturing Data Spaces as the missing foundation. Data Spaces provide a secure, sovereign framework for controlled data sharing across plants and partners—without giving up ownership. From energy efficiency to predictive maintenance and compliance reporting, real-world examples show how manufacturers can unlock value while preserving control. We explore the layers of interoperability, human concerns, key enabling technologies like AAS and OPC UA, and how to get started with pilots that deliver real ROI. For manufacturers, building trust-based data collaboration isn’t just a tech upgrade—it’s a strategic move that defines future competitiveness in an increasingly connected industry.

At Hannover Messe 2025, T-Systems showcased innovations across Data Spaces, the Metaverse, AI, and sustainability—spanning use cases from immersive training and CO₂ tracking to international supply chain transparency and sovereign cloud infrastructure. With active participation across Gaia-X, Industry 4.0, and umati partner stands, T-Systems highlighted its leadership in digital industrial transformation, engaging with political, media, and industry leaders to shape the future of manufacturing.

As digital ecosystems grow, seamless and secure access becomes a critical challenge. T-Systems Trust & Participate addresses this by offering managed identity wallets that align with open standards like Gaia-X, eIDAS, and Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). These wallets simplify onboarding, ensure compliance, and enhance user trust by enabling organizations and individuals to exchange verifiable credentials effortlessly. Integrated into the Pontus-X Marketplace, this solution empowers participants to securely access services, verify identities, and manage credentials with ease—bridging the gap between open frameworks and enterprise-grade usability for a truly interoperable and future-proof digital economy.

The cloud-edge continuum is transforming Europe’s data-driven industry. Telekom’s OnEdge and Connect & Integrate solutions enable secure, real-time data processing and seamless integration into interoperable dataspaces. Together, they empower businesses with full data sovereignty, compliance with European standards, and the ability to monetize insights efficiently. As part of the 8ra initiative, these technologies pave the way for AI, Industrial IoT, and Digital Twins, driving Europe’s technological independence.

Jupyter Notebook is now seamlessly integrated into Build & Operate, bringing interactive data collaboration, real-time analysis, and advanced visualization to a secure, governed dataspace. Whether you're a data scientist, analyst, or business user, this powerful feature enables you to explore datasets, generate insights, and share findings effortlessly—all within a trusted ecosystem designed for efficiency, compliance, and innovation.

At LEAP 2025, T-Systems and Detasad showcased cutting-edge dataspace solutions, driving secure data collaboration, AI innovation, and compliance in Saudi Arabia. Through strategic partnerships and cloud-agnostic platforms, we empower businesses to scale, optimize operations, and unlock new revenue opportunities in the region’s thriving digital economy.

This article outlines our experience migrating workloads from an on-premises data center to the AWS Cloud, culminating in the decommissioning of our last server in December 2024. The migration focused on our Motion Data product, which leverages geo-information analytics from Deutsche Telekom's mobile network to provide anonymized mass movement insights for industries such as retail, tourism, and public transport. Our transition to AWS was driven by rising colocation costs and the need to modernize our infrastructure, which faced limitations due to outdated technology constraints, high maintenance efforts, and inefficient storage and compute resource management. We selected AWS's Replatforming approach to harness managed services, improve scalability, and replace legacy Hadoop infrastructure with a more flexible Spark-on-Kubernetes and S3-based solution. The migration delivered key benefits, including 35% lower infrastructure costs, access to up-to-date technology stacks, and removal of resource constraints for compute workloads. By leveraging AWS-managed services such as Kubernetes (EKS), EMR, and RDS, we optimized performance, simplified operations, and positioned ourselves for future growth and innovation in cloud-native environments.

T-Systems and NTT Communications are pioneering global dataspace collaboration, bridging Europe and Japan with interoperable data-sharing ecosystems. This partnership leverages T-Systems’ Build & Operate testbed and NTT’s local expertise to foster innovation, trust, and secure cross-border data sharing.

At CES 2025, dataspaces take center stage in AI readiness and supply chain transformation. With pioneers like Catena-X and Ouranos, cross-organizational data sharing is unlocking high-quality datasets for AI and digital twins. Showcasing business cases from Ford-Flex+ to IAV’s internal dataspace, we explore how dataspaces fuel sustainability, efficiency, and next-gen automotive innovation.

Sustainability is evolving from compliance to a strategic advantage, transforming supply chains through data-driven ecosystems. By leveraging CO₂ data chains, digital twins, and open data spaces, companies enhance efficiency, enable precise recalls, and accelerate innovation. Our workshop with AWS, Bosch, and IDSA highlighted how dataspaces drive sustainability and supply chain resilience, unlocking new business models and shared investments.

This blog highlights how T-Systems, an AWS Sovereign Cloud Partner, addresses the growing demand for digital sovereignty. It explores the challenges businesses face in managing data security, regulatory compliance, and innovation in a cloud-first world. The post details T-Systems’ advanced solutions like Data Protection as a Service (DPaaS) and dataspaces, which empower organizations to maintain control over their data, ensure compliance with regulations like GDPR, and enable trusted data collaboration across ecosystems. Tailored for industries like healthcare, finance, and the public sector, these offerings provide secure, scalable, and compliant tools for a digital-first era.